THE amount of money poured into fighting crime in North Yorkshire has soared by almost 80 per cent in the last decade.

The region’s police chiefs said the funding boost – the second highest rate of increase in the UK over the last decade – has led to almost 500 extra people keeping communities safe and an array of improved services.

The figures emerged as North Yorkshire Police Authority (NYPA) revealed its budget for the current financial year has been set at £139.72 million, almost £4 million more than its expenditure figure for 2009/10. Authority chief executive Jeremy Holderness said the extra cash over the last decade had been ploughed back into strengthening its staffing levels and developing initiatives to combat crime and make the region a safer place to live.

He said: “At the turn of the millennium, North Yorkshire Police only had 1,200 or so police officers. “Now it has 1,500 officers and just under 200 police community support officers, so there are 500 more people directly serving our communities.

“The IT infrastructure of the force has been completely refreshed, our vehicle fleet is once again new and modern and we are in the process of pumping money into our property and facilities, modernising buildings we want to keep and investing in new property where we need to do so to serve communities better.”

Mr Holderness said NYPA had promised improved performance when it originally outlined to the public why more money was needed in 2002/03, and said: “On the back of Safer Neighbourhood Teams, we now have a police service which is much closer to our community and serving their needs in a much more effective way “And, of course, we have seen significant decreases in crime, with reductions of more than 40 per cent over the last seven years.”

In 1999/2000, NYPA’s budget for cutting crime was £78.04 million, of which £14 million was provided by the police precept within council tax bills, but the 2010/11 figure means NYPA is only outstripped by its counterparts in Surrey in terms of the percentage by which individual forces’ budgets have risen during that period.

This year, the average Band D householder in North Yorkshire will contribute £204.55 towards the cost of policing the region, £5.38 more than in 2009/10 and £152.35 more than in 1999/2000, but Mr Holderness said: “Having increased the financial base of North Yorkshire Police earlier this decade, since 2005/06 police council tax precept rises have been below the rate of inflation.”